Daniel Abraham - The Tyrant's Law

“I believe so,” Yardem said.

“What could she plausibly be doing for the bank? Darning our socks? And this one—Witan Adada? He’s the one with the missing leg who begs at that taproom.”

Yardem sat on the divan, nodding, his ears canted forward and his hands clasped on his knees.

“Many of them are vulnerable people,” he said. “Isn’t that what we’re here for? To extend the protection we have to as many people as we can?”

“Our privilege isn’t built on stone,” Cithrin said. “When we give this list to the protector, it will be a list of people immune to his authority. But it can turn into a list of people to be singled out for persecution without folding a corner. The bank is a protection as long as we’re in Geder’s good graces. I’d no more single Tamar Sol out to the protector than I’d point a wolf toward a baby. I won’t list anyone as working for me who isn’t willing to be killed because I did it.”

Yardem grunted.

“Not the best recruitment speech,” he said. “Let me take that back, and I’ll see what I can do about revising it.”

“I’m sorry,” Cithrin said, holding out the page.

“No reason to be,” the Tralgu said.

The report had come in the day before. Cithrin’s scheme for an anonymous bounty board appeared to be moving forward. Komme Medean had included a list of prices being offered for a variety of crimes against the sovereign powers of Antea, the escape of slaves, the death of soldiers from common sword-and-bows to nobles. There was even a massive reward listed for Geder’s death. They were reported as rumors with a request that all the branches reply with whatever similar schemes they were hearing of. Even if the letters went astray or Cithrin found herself being questioned by one of the tainted priests, she could truthfully say that she didn’t have knowledge of the bounties being offered by the bank or anyone else in particular. Komme’s reports said that the prizes were to be collected in Herez from a shadowy figure named Callon Cane, and she could truthfully say that was all she knew for certain. She was cultivating her own ignorance. It was just another way in which the normal logic of her world had been reversed.

Yardem walked out to the compound’s central yard, and she accompanied him. The compound was still full of the refugees and guests that Isadau had welcomed in, or else the ones who had taken their place. There were men and women and children. The stables were empty, though. The grass on which the horses had grazed was brown and dry. There was less music than there had been when the buildings had been a home for Isadau and her family. It made the place seem empty, even though it was full.

The sky was pale and strangely opalescent, and the wind carried the threat of storm without the promise of release. Yardem walked off to speak with Enen and the other house guards, leaving Cithrin to make her way out to the gate and the street. Suddapal was not her city. However long she stayed, the roads would always feel a bit too wide, the land a bit too open. She missed glazed windows and negotiations conducted in private. And still, she would have paved the seafront in silver if it would protect the people there.

She saw the protector’s men coming along the street, dark uniforms marching in a square. Not quite a threat of violence, but ready for it at any moment. And in the center of the square, the brown robes of the priest. She felt the dread in her gut, but only waited for them patiently. They might not be coming for her.

They were coming for her.

“Magistra bel Sarcour,” the priest said, bowing slightly. “I hope the day is treating you kindly.”

“It will do, I suppose,” Cithrin said through her smile. “Unless you have another one on offer?”

The priest smiled back uneasily. She’d spoken with him three or four times now. Less than she’d expected, since she’d made herself one of the more important people in the city. She couldn’t help wondering if Fallon Broot was keeping them apart out of his own unease with the priesthood. She had noticed that the friendly nonsense of banter seemed to bother the priest, so she employed it liberally.

“There was a fire last night,” the priest said.

“I didn’t know that,” Cithrin said, telling the truth.

“It was near the prison. While the protector’s men were dealing with it, someone threw a rope ladder over the back wall and almost seventy prisoners escaped.”

“Really?” Cithrin said.

“Several were the children of people in the employ of your bank.”

“And I’d imagine several weren’t,” Cithrin said. “Any in any case, it wasn’t anything the bank had a hand in, so I don’t believe I can help you with that.”

The priest tilted his head and bobbed up and down on the balls of his feet in a way that made him look like a sparrow.

“You don’t want to know which of your employees’ children were part of the attack?”

“I don’t,” Cithrin said. “Was there anything else you wanted to ask about, or shall I return to my business?”

The priest held out a letter.

“A message came for you by military courier,” the priest said. “From the Lord Regent.”

“Oh,” Cithrin said. “Perhaps I mistook small talk for interrogation.”

She took the letter as if it were a normal thing, and not the chance that Geder had changed his mind about her and was about to have her thrown into prison. She kept her smile pleasant and her gaze locked on the priest’s. Making him look away first was a petty thing, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t be a politician in everything, and the man frightened her. She turned back to the compound. Later, she would need to go to the trading house and at least make some pretense at the normal business of the bank, but correspondence from Geder was her first priority. She went to her office and closed the doors. She put the letter down on the desk. The address on the outer fold was written in his hand. Twice, she reached toward it and pulled back. She put a book over it to keep it from blowing under a desk, went to the kitchen, and came back with a bottle of wine and no cup. The alcohol soothed the anxiety knotting her gut, and when she was a little over halfway through, she was ready to open the letter.

… I need the company of someone who cares for me … I will begin on my way south to Suddapal and, my dear, to you.

Remembering the peace that I took from your touch, from your body, has been the only thing that—

It was like a letter written between people she’d never met. It was love and sex and a kind of raw vulnerability. If she’d only happened upon it, she would have thought it was sweet and touching. She would have imagined the woman to whom it had been written and the man who’d put pen to paper, and she would have envied them. Only she was the woman, and the man was Geder Palliako. And worse than that, she could see where this unreal version of her had grown from. She remembered feeling fond of Geder, the frightened little man who was trying to protect the boy put in his charge. She remembered watching them working puzzles with complex stories about Drakkis Stormcrow and sleeping dragons. She remembered kissing him, and more than that, wanting to kiss him.

Only now he was coming here thinking that he was still the man he’d been that summer, and she was the woman he imagined her to be.

“Well,” she said, softly and to herself. “Fuck.”

The scratching at the door startled her back to herself. The last of the wine had gone, though she didn’t remember drinking it. There was more in the kitchens, and she badly wanted another bottle. The scratch came again.

“Come in,” she said, her words perfectly sharp. One bottle wasn’t enough to leave her drunk. Tonight, three might not suffice.